Translation of novels C-E

[lilongyue]

Anyone have any experience with this kind of translation work? Am in the process of looking for a job, and was thinking of this as an option. Where to start? What is the going rate?

[liuzhou]

You would have to be commisioned by a publisher in the English speaking world who had acquired translation rights.

[mitcho]

There are many in the industry who are very very good at taking an English text and translating it to Chinese. C-E translators who can do good work—parsing the textual and lexical choices in the original Chinese work, understanding their significance/nuance, and interpreting that into appropriate and beautiful-in-its-own-right English—are fewer. If you're in this class of translators (or will be, with years of work), you'll be rewarded handsomely, as the industry is in a real need for such workers.

As for finding such work, it's probably more an issue of chance and meeting the right person at the right time. Many translation companies sought by publishers slowly build relationships with individual translators to see what they are capable of. Only after a while would you be offered a larger project. I think it's less common for a publisher (unless they're big) to try to go find the translator and manage that themselves.

mitcho

[lilongyue]

OK, thanks! I just sent off my first translation of a Buddhist text to an American Buddhist magazine. Should know in a few days if they're going to publish it. Step one!